Property & People - the true pandemic in America

It has been hard to write anything these past few weeks, primarily because nothing seems to change day to day and a kind of paralysis has set in. Then the events of the past few days brought about the realization nothing has really changed, certainly not for the Black people of America. While we all look forward to returning to "normal", Black America is probably closer to Stephen Dedalus in thinking “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” As a country we are quick to decry the looting and violence meted out against property because property is sacred. (This is not new. The 14th Amendment which granted equal protection and due process under the law to former slaves was historically used by corporations to gain more property rights.) On the other hand, people seem to be expendable. Their rights can be trampled by those sworn to protect rights but all our attention is on the property damage. I shouldn’t have to state this but I know I am expected to, I don’t condone violence - but violence against property cannot be judged on the same scale as violence against people. 

It was pure coincidence that I just finished Ibram X Kendi’s masterpiece “Stamped from the Beginning: A definitive history of racist America”. He argues that the three most popular strategies against racism in this country have all failed:

• self-sacrifice : a myth that claims that White people would have to sacrifice in order to ensure a more egalitarian anti-racist America. This has been disproved time and time again. You can pursue self-interest and also be anti-racist. For all the "others" in America, especially immigrants like me, Kendi says “it is in the intelligent self-interest of Asians, Native Americans and Latina/os to challenge anti-Black racism, knowing they will not be free of racism until Black people are free of racism.” I have not personally experienced hate in this country (UK - that’s a different story), but I am not naive to think that my group of people are somehow exempt because we are model citizens, highly skilled workers. Just see what other Asians are facing now as though every individual Chinese person was responsible for bringing the pandemic to this country! So yes, while we may not personally understand the struggle of black America it is in our self-interest to join this struggle. 

• Uplift suasion - where Black people are asked to show exemplary, upstanding behavior to convince white people of their merits. This is a racist idea because individual Blacks (or Asians or Muslims or ….) are not race representatives. Every Black man cannot be Sidney Poitier or Denzel Washington. We are often quick to use “few bad apples” to explain away police brutality and systemic racism. Racism is individualized. But we don’t afford the same privilege to the other side of the coin. Welfare queens, Mexican rapists, Islamic terrorists … the epithets are endless.
•  Educational persuasion - where we think we can educate the hate out of people. Instead we should focus on racist policies that lead to racist ideas leading to ignorance and hate as opposed to the other way around.

So do you blame when people who have tried every “approved” failed strategy resort to looting and violence to express their anger? Kneeling didn’t work. Just ask Kapernick. Black Lives Matter is still trying. What has changed? What have we all learned in the past few years? Just because we had elected a Black President can we close the book on racism? Paul Beatty in The Sellout states “That’s the problem with history, we like to think it’s a book—that we can turn the page and move the $%^*  on. But history isn’t the paper it’s printed on. It’s memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you.” The land of the free is also home to millions who are not free from prejudice and some of this runs deep through the entire existence of this country. History comes back to haunt us. To break this cycle Kendi proposes we should all be focussed on only electing principled anti-racists to any elected position - from our local school board to the President of this country. 

I will never know what it is to have been George Floyd, but his plight evokes a visceral feeling in me. To a small extent, the birdwatcher, Cooper in NYC - I could identify with him. As a fellow birder I am annoyed to see pets not on leash but I have hesitated so many times to call someone out because of the fear of being perceived as an outsider, someone who even after two decades of living here has been (and will forever be) asked, “where are you from originally?” and constantly have to prove I am 100% American. Black lives matter and not just for Black people. It matters to all of us - immigrants, minimum wage workers, Gay/Lesbian/Trans Gender, Women and even to the privileged majority. Covid-19 disproportionately affects African Americans, but so does this other pandemic which has been killing them long before the virus came around. When we find the cure for the former, let's not forget the latter.